More than 20 parishes in the Archdiocese of Louisville have reported wind damage from the March 3 storms that blew across Kentucky.
Winds, recorded at Bowman Field at 79 miles per hour, uprooted trees, broke utility poles and left more than 300,000 LG&E and KU customers without power. By the morning on March 7, about 43,000 LG&E customers were waiting for crews to restore their power.
“The cost of repairs is going to be substantial,” said Brad Harruff of Catholic Mutual, which provides insurance for the Archdiocese of Louisville. “There is heavy triage going on.”
As of March 7, he’d heard from “twenty-one parish locations so far and it’s still building. Some have more damage than others. There are a lot of locations with a little bit of damage. There’s trees down everywhere.”
Roofing shingles seem to have taken the biggest hit, he said. A tree fell on the Holy Spirit Church offices and was removed March 6. At some parishes, flag poles, light posts and fencing were downed by the winds.
“Jefferson, Marion and Washington counties seem to be the worst, but there is also damage north and south,” Harruff said. “The good news is that the administrators and business managers are handling it well; they’re taking care of things and doing a really good job.”
Dare to Care was providing mobile food pantries on Monday and Tuesday around the city to provide food for those without power, including at the Catholic Enrichment Center and Holy Name Church.
Jan Martin, a Church of the Epiphany parishioner who volunteers with Dare to Care at Holy Name each month, said they had “a whole lot more people” than usual at the mobile food pantry Tuesday.
“But Dare to Care is great, they always step up,” she said.
